Thursday, July 5, 2012

Stepping off the plane, Renee and I were engulfed by an
ocean of hot air. Ninety-five degrees and 103% humidity (as our waiter later
remarked). We caught a cab straight to the Art Institute of Chicago and met up
with Mark Pascale. Mark is curating a show of Martin Puryear’s works on paper
and invited us to discuss the prints we’ve made with Martin over the last 11
years. Graciously, Mark gave us a welcoming tour of the newish Renzo Piano
addition, including the spacious gallery Martin’s exhibition will occupy. The
light in the new section is refreshing, with windows overlooking native prairie
gardens.

Pam Paulson in the Print Room at the AIC

Mark further indulged us by taking us into the cavernous
storage rooms of the works on paper collection, where row upon row of large
flat files housed works slumbering in a climate-controlled stupor. Mark opened
drawers and unshelved framed works, rousing Lee Bontecou etchings printed by Tatyana
Grosman, gigantic Russian war posters, a dog collage by Joan Brown, and a
charcoal study by Kerry James Marshall that I will never forget. Next up was
the conservation department, where we talked glue theory with the conservators
and enjoyed inspecting all their work areas and tools.

Finally, we found repose in the study room in the company of
“Profile” by Martin Puryear and kicked back for an overview of the material
that has been gathered to date for the show. Last fall, we shipped 99 working proofs
and miscellaneous ephemera from our projects with Martin to the Art Institute
to document the process of making the prints. It is really amazing to see this
idea for the exhibition take shape.

Renee and Pam infront of the Kapoor

Mark visited Martin a few months ago with Ruth Fine (curator
of special projects in modern art, National Gallery of Art) and Harriet Stratis
(head of paper conservation at the Art Institute) to take a look at his personal
archive of works on paper. Martin studied printmaking in Sweden and made highly
successful prints early in his career. Renee and I had glimpsed these early
works the first time we visited Martin’s studio. It was great fun to be
virtually reintroduced.

Exiting the museum, we swam over to Millennium Park, strolling
beside smartly designed fountains full of hot Chicagoans cooling themselves in
the mist. We wound our way over to the
fun house mirror, “Cloud Gate” (Anish Kapoor’s monumental bean) and around to
Gehry’s Jay Pritzker Pavilion. All wows!

The next day we looked at all the working proofs and the
correlating edition prints, analyzing how we got from A to B. Not always easy
to recreate, but thanks to usefully redundant documentation, we were satisfied
we had it right. Mostly!

Later, after a quick walk to the lake, we met up with our
old friend Stephanie Sherman for drinks and dinner at Gage, across from the
museum. Stephanie (an amazing art professional) introduced us to the very
handsome Billy Lawless, who owns Gage as well as Henri, its sister restaurant
next door. We relaxed with a great cheese plate, fine martinis, a venison
burger, and the fabulous staff. Then it was on to Henri for a memorable dessert
at the bar.

Andy Cutting & Brice McCoy at Henri

Thankfully, the next morning, the temperature had backed
down, and rainclouds mitigated the blazing sun. Skirting downpours, we paid a
visit to Kerry James Marshall’s studio. Kerry is an amazingly productive
individual. He has multiple projects in the works and then some. We were
delighted to see several of his models, who closely resemble the one he worked
with while in our studio.

Barbi Dolls at KJM's studio

Of great interest to me are the costumes Kerry and his
assistant have designed and sewn for his dolls/models to wear when he draws
them. They intentionally avoid recalling a discernible time period yet remain oddly
familiar. The use of oversized elements like buttons and textures from the
ribbing of socks upends the expected.

We boarded the plane back to the Bay Area exhausted and
inspired. However, we were certainly not as exhausted as this guy in Renee’s
row.